Five Your Home Town

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Revised Draft # 4 Selflessly Slash-Edited by Blogger:"Serenity, Now!

Or, My Life in a Nutshell" Have you ever written your way to the top of Blogit? It takes, in my humble opinion, two characteristics to achieve such vertiguous heights: talent and persistence (just kidding). What it takes, of course, is serenity. Serenity is this like really cool thing, and you can... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, December 10, 2004

Or, My Life in a Nutshell" Have you ever written your way to the top of Blogit? It takes, in my humble opinion, two characteristics to achieve such vertiguous heights: talent and persistence (just kidding). What it takes, of course, is serenity. Look it up in the dictionary, there. Serenity is this... Sign in to see full entry.

Revised Draft # 2 To Be Delivered at the Blogit! Convention:"Serenity, Now!

Or, My Life in a Nutshell" Have you ever written your way to the top of Blogit? It takes, in my humble opinion, two characteristics to achieve such vertiguous heights: talent and persistence (just kidding). What it takes, of course, is serenity. Look it up in the dictionary, there. Serenity is this... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, December 7, 2004

KlaraRoberts as Voice of Reason: "Teaching Rap in the Inner City?"

After I got my first masters, they took me out of the big reading curriculum, where I was facing over a hundred students every day. They put me in the learning center with computers, teaching the most at-risk among us. At varous in-services teachers used to argue over the teaching of rap-writing, as... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, December 4, 2004

On Teachng Writing, right. "Editing Process to ELL's"

Many languge arts teachers who switch to teaching ESL, or who do double duty as international students crowd their classrooms, I think, do themselves a disservice by trying to conform rigidly to the original writing process, as described in much of US curriculum. The four steps of the writing... Sign in to see full entry.

Ariala Says to Kingmi -- "You're a Funny Guy, Dude and I'm Gonna Kick

the sh** out of you the next time I see you." De vez en cuando hay la probabilidad de...wait...start again in English. From time to time, as I told Ari, (I call her Ari) I have a tendency to get my messages mixed up. That is, for example, when I read the 2000 US Census and discovered that of Mexican... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Teaching Writing Through the Use of Music

McRory's Free Writing Exercise is designed to get students flowing in some literacy fluency. You play them a song. They are told the only rule is that they cannot stop writing during the song. They can write a poem, a letter, a lyric, copy the lyrics they like, or simply re-write " I don't know what... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, November 27, 2004

How I became a real teacher -- although I'll never admit it in public!

In 1982 my father came to visit me in Lexington, Kentucky. I was living the life of riley. I had a 3-nights a week singing gig, a steady substitute teaching gig, and a girlfriend. I really was kicking ass. He said, "You have to move back to Iowa." I was like, "right." But within the year, I was... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, November 26, 2004

"What is Your Method For Teaching Writing?" sister asked me just before

August. I was glib and almost flippantly confident in my response, because I've done it this way for decades. "Ownership", I replied. "I give them a notebook, with a label for them to write their own names, then we start writing together." What happens when they finish a notebook? Make them buy... Sign in to see full entry.